Sunday

Feb.
22, 1998

Our God, Our Help

It's the birthday in York, Pennsylvania, 1936, of J. MICHAEL BISHOP,
winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize for Medicine. He found that healthy body
cells contain a dormant gene that, when triggered, causes cancer ÷ a
major step in the discovery of the disease's origins.

It's the birthday of Irish short-story writer SEAN O'FAOLAIN, born
in County Cork in
1900. He came to the U.S., studied at Harvard and Boston College and
began writing dozens of short stories about the lives of Irish men and
women caught up in "the Troubles."

It's the birthday in Rockland, Maine, 1892, of poet EDNA ST. VINCENT
MILLAY. After college she moved to Greenwich Village and lived the Bohemian life: writing
short stories, acting in plays, and demonstrating against the First
World War. When she was 30 years old she won the 1922 Pulitzer - one of
the youngest ever to win - with her collection A Few Figs from Thistles,
which contain her best-known four lines:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

GEORGE WASHINGTON was born on this date in Westmoreland County,
Virginia, 1732. Washington's early life was quiet; the estate he farmed
and managed at Mt. Vernon took all his time. He said farming was
"the most delectable of pursuits - honorable, amusing, and, with
superior judgment, profitable."

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Although he has edited several anthologies of his favorite poems, O, What a Luxury: Verses Lyrical, Vulgar, Pathetic & Profound forges a new path for Garrison Keillor, as a poet of light verse.
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